Dance legacy of Second World War veteran lives on in Cape Breton
NEW WATERFORD — Doris MacDonald’s legacy will live on in Cape Breton in the students studying tap, ballet, jazz and other non-highland dance styles, even if they don’t know it.
The Second World War veteran from London, England, opened what is believed to be the island’s first non-highland dance school one month after moving to New Waterford as a war bride in 1946.
MacDonald died in her adopted hometown of New Waterford on July 26 at the age of 98.
“One-hundred per cent every dance school, outside of Highland, in Cape Breton right now can trace their roots back to Doris,” said Denise Jardine, a former student who took over the Doris MacDonald Dance Academy when MacDonald retired.
“Some of the young dancers know her name, but they don’t really understand all she did. Either their teacher or their (studio owner) was taught by Doris.”
MacDonald, whose maiden name is Thomas, grew up in North London and lived through Hitler’s blitz on the country — a bombing campaign that led to extreme food rationing and nightly blackouts.
At 19, she enlisted in the Royal Air Force where she was an instrument technician, in charge of searchlights which would be shone on enemy aircraft to assist in shooting them down.
It was because of the war that MacDonald, then Thomas, met the man from New Waterford who would become her husband, Allan MacDonald, after he was injured during the D-Day invasion and sent to hospital in England.
In January 1946, the couple were married and later that year they moved to New Waterford where MacDonald opened her first dance studio four weeks after coming to Canada.
“I used to live near the French Club. I remember watching Doris, chasing all the girls around outside the French Club, trying to get them to come to a dance class,” said Tom White, former president of the New Waterford branch of the Royal Canadian Legion.
“(Along with the dance teaching) Doris did a lot for the community that I bet most of them didn’t even know she did.”
White said along with building the dance school, MacDonald and her husband were very dedicated to the legion in New Waterford, which is named in memory of Allan who died in 2006.
Along with tirelessly volunteering at the legion, MacDonald was one of the veterans who would facilitate talks at schools about life during the Second World War.
“She’d have all the little ones sit around her, back then we’d go to talk at St. Agnes School, and Doris would tell them about the bombings and having to go down into the cellar,” White said.
“Then in the morning, they’d all climb out … Go outside and put out any burners, make a pot of tea and go to work…The kids were drawn to it. She used to say that’s just the English spirit… Brits are tough.”
That tough British work ethic MacDonald told the students about was something people close to her say she lived and her dance school is an example of it.
Within five years of opening the first Doris MacDonald Dance Academy in New Waterford in 1946, she was operating another three locations in Glace Bay, Sydney and on the Northside. For 66 years, six days a week, MacDonald taught dance, bringing Denise Jardine on as a partner in 1988 to help teach students. At each recital, MacDonald would dance at the end, which at first was a tap solo and then later a ballroom dance number with her husband.
“I remember at the end of concerts, Allan would come up with this special board to put on stage. And she’d have on these shoes that looked like pointed shoes with taps on the toes,” said Susan Gallop who studied at Doris MacDonald Dance Academy in the 1950s and early 1960s.
“I remember her tapping on her toes, in her sparkly dress, with the long sleeves and it was just amazing. She was so amazing and beautiful … I’d be up in the balcony with my mouth open. I’d never seen anyone do that before (or after).”
The first classes Gallop enrolled in were at the Dorchester Street legion in Sydney until they moved to the YMCA. When Gallop was a teen, it was MacDonald that encouraged Gallop to take her first dance teaching licencing exam - a move that shaped the Balls Creek woman’s life.
“I was 17 and once a year an (examiner) from the National Association of Teachers of Dancing would come over from England and do the exams,” said Gallop, who eventually opened her own school called Cape Breton School of the Arts.
“She drilled me and I did good. I got my licence and I kept going. She had everything to do with that. Doris encouraged me to continue dancing … To do more, to study more.”
Jardine was another student encouraged by MacDonald to make dance her career, which led Jardine to work alongside MacDonald and eventually making the step to take over the school, which is now named D ‘n’ R Dance.
“Doris shaped the lives of so many people. My own, my husband’s. The life we have today and the people that are in it are here because of Doris,” said Jardine, who says Doris was like a second mother to her.
“The baby program we have at the school is still exactly the same. Why change something that’s so incredibly good and works so well?”
Part of what MacDonald taught was a love of dance and that it wasn’t only about the steps. Jardine feels it is her “duty” to continue teaching this and with the help of others hope MacDonald’s legacy will be kept alive now that she’s gone.
“Doris had a lot of faith and, you know, Allan was waiting up there (in heaven) with his arms open waiting to dance,” Jardine said.
“For a couple who couldn’t have kids, they ended up having thousands. God works in strange ways sometimes. This is how it worked out for them.”